San Diego QB picks up first offer

Greg Biggins | Recruiting Analyst

It took a little longer than we expected but San Diego (Calif.) Mira Mesa quarterback Mike Coughlin received his first scholarship offer. Coughlin was the top quarterback we saw at the Nike Camp at USC and has a short list of schools on his favorites list right now.

Coughlin, 6-4, 205 pounds definitely has the look of a college quarterback with his size and arm strength. He had a solid junior season throwing for 1,760 yards and 14 touchdowns and rushing for another 11 scores. From what we saw at the SoCal Nike Camp, the best is yet to come.

Coughlin showed a live, accurate arm and throws a very nice deep ball. He can make all the throws and is a better than average athlete at the position.

Following the Nike camp, the quarterback attended team camps at Colorado, Boise State and Arizona and did very well at each.

"I just got a letter from Colorado basically saying they like me and asking me not to commit anywhere right now because they're watching pretty closely," Coughlin said. "Arizona has offered me an official visit and Boise State wants to watch me early in the year. Utah is also showing me a lot of interest and I'm very interested in them as well. They told me they want to see more of me and specifically, see how I look running the ball because they're going to be using the same offense they had with Alex Smith where the quarterback is a dual threat option."

As for his first offer, Coughlin received the good news after a vacation to Hawaii.

"When I got home, I had a stack of letters from UTEP," Coughlin said. "The first six or seven were just the usual letters but then I opened up another one and it was a scholarship offer. I was really excited to get that first offer and I like UTEP a lot. One of their coaches came to a spring practice and they must have liked what they saw to offer.

"Right now, I'm not planning to commit anywhere early. I want to take my visits and see how recruiting plays out after the first few weeks of the season."